UPDATE: The server is now online.

Dear all,

We had to reboot server 'mag1' due to a minor software issue. It should be up in a few minutes.

We are sorry for the inconvenience caused.

Thank you for your understanding.

We are pleased to inform you that the previously announced migration from Apache to LiteSpeed Enterprise has been completed successfully, and the new LiteSpeed Web Server is now operational. Although the changes should not require any actions from your side, please let us know if you experience any issues or irregularities.

Things seems to be running smoothly at the moment, however, some tuning might be necessary before optimal performance is achieved.

Information regarding PHP applications and Magento Connect:

With LiteSpeed, PHP scripts are executed under the ID of the specific user account instead of the generic web server user ID. This eliminates the need for any special file permissions for scripts that need to write to file, thus also providing better security. For those of you who have experienced some issues with the Magento Connect Manager in the past, these issues should now be resolved! Magento Connect will now work out-of-the-box with default permissions.

To reset your permissions for maximum security, you can execute the following shell commands from SSH:

Note: First, navigate to your Magento root directory (usually 'public_html')

The above commands will change the permissions for all directories to '755' and all files to '644'.

If you are not familiar with using the command line, feel free to contact us for assistance.

UPDATE: Apache has been successfully replaced with the LiteSpeed Web Server, and the server should now be under normal operation.

Dear Customers,

We would like to bring to your attention that this Saturday, January 17, 2009, we will be launching our highly anticipated LiteSpeed Enterprise-powered hosting platform. LiteSpeed Web Server is the leading high-performance web server, and is superior in terms of both speed and scalability compared to the current Apache-powered platform.

Below are some of the exciting benefits of LiteSpeed:

Superior performance. LiteSpeed is up to 9 times faster than Apache, and PHP performance increases by 50%, resulting in even faster page load times and more responsive web sites.

LiteSpeed PHP is up to 30% faster than FastCGI PHP and 50% faster than Apache with mod_php.

Better security and flexibility. With the dedicated PHP LiteSpeed SAPI, PHP applications can be started in suEXEC mode, which means that scripts are run under the user ID of the file owner instead of under the user ID of the web server process. This provides much better security as the file/directory permissions can be left at default. More importantly, the Magento Connect Manager will work out-of-the-box with default permissions!

More reliable and scalable. Advanced Anti-DDoS protection and system overload prevention ensures minimum service interruption.

In order to replace Apache with LiteSpeed, we need to bring down the server for a short period of time while we carry out the necessary work. This procedure will start at 4:00 a.m. EST (9:00 a.m. GMT) and is expected to last for no more than 30 minutes. During this time, client web sites will be unavailable, while other services such as email will still be operational.

While we are confident that the procedure will go smoothly and not cause any problems, please open a support ticket as soon as possible if you experience any issues with your web sites or other services after the migration is complete.

We thank you for your understanding in this matter, and hope that you will appreciate the benefits of the new platform.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact us.

PS: the monthly plan prices will of course remain unaffected by this upgrade.

With compliments,
ProperHost.net

To the attention of all web hosting clients:

The default outgoing IP address of server 'mag1.properhost.net' has been changed from 69.72.255.178 to 65.98.109.113. If you are using any application that 'posts' data to another server, you may have to add the new IP to your Allowed IPs list. Examples of such applications are online credit card processors.

The new outgoing IP is: 65.98.109.113

If you have any questions, please contact our support department for assistance.

Dear Customers,

As some of you already have noticed, the server mag1.properhost.net has experienced problems during the last 4 hours. In this post we will like to update you on the current situation.

This is the situation:

Around 8:00 PM CET, the server had to be taken down to replace a faulty motherboard, which caused lack of air flow in the server. The fans were running far from their optimal levels, and this could have caused serious damage to the CPU and other vital components if not had been taken care of immediately. A new motherboard was installed, and the server was brought online again at 10:00 PM CET only to fail again after a few minutes because of an issue with the BIOS which had to be upgraded/re-flashed.  Our administrators are still working to get the server back online as soon as possible. During this time, your sites may be accessible from time to time, but intermittent service disruption will likely occur.

We are terribly sorry for the inconvenience caused by this, and we apologize that some support tickets may have taken a bit longer than usual to get a reply because of the increased requests due to these problems.

If you have any questions, please open a support ticket or email support@properhost.net.